86th Annual
Allstate Sugar Bowl
January 1, 2020
#5 Georgia 26 (Final: 12-2)
#7 Baylor 14 (Final: 11-3)
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Mercedes-Benz Superdome
Att: 55,211
ESPN Viewers: 10,880,000
Official Game Program
Official Statistics – pdf
Final Game Notes – pdf
Georgia Postgame Quotes – pdf
Baylor Postgame Quotes – pdf
Sugar Bowl Quote Central 2019-20
Georgia Freshman George Pickens Leads Bulldogs to 26-14 Victory Over Baylor
Freshman George Pickens had 12 catches for 175 yards to lead Georgia to victory. Photo by Jonathan Bachman.
NEW ORLEANS – On Jan. 1, 2019, after his team was upset by Texas in the 85th Allstate Sugar Bowl, Georgia coach Kirby Smart had his assistants and other staff members submit notes on what went wrong - and what should be done if such a situation should occur again.
The core consensus – in today’s college football postseason atmosphere use only the players who really want to be there regardless of their place on the depth chart.
“The Sugar Bowl is a great opportunity to play in a prestigious bowl game,” Smart said. “But we found out that it’s more important for some than it is for others. No matter what bowl it is, you want the guys who are excited about playing. It matters a whole lot more than how good they are.”
Funny how things work out.
On Jan. 1, 2020, the Bulldogs were back in New Orleans for the 86th Allstate Sugar Bowl, and in almost identical circumstances - a second straight fifth-place finish in the College Football Playoff rankings after an SEC Championship Game loss, this one to LSU. That meant once again they were just one spot out of the playoffs and that was after their excruciating 2018 overtime loss to Alabama in the national title game.
So close, but with no cigars.
To be sure, the decisiveness of the loss to LSU (37-10) took away the argument that Georgia belonged in the playoffs, one that Smart had made the year before after a tightly-contested loss to Alabama (35-28) in the same game, probably distracting from the preparation focus. But it was still a demoralizing defeat in a high-stakes game.
And, as was the case the year before, the Bulldogs were facing an upstart opponent from the Big 12 with something to prove, this time in Baylor. The Bears may not have brand recognition of Texas, but they were no easy out either. Only an overtime loss in the conference title game to Oklahoma, the lone team to beat them in the regular season, had kept Baylor out of the CFP. The Bears finished seventh in the CFP rankings, far better than four-loss Texas the year before (No. 15).
On top of that, Baylor, which had gone from 1-11 to 11-2 in just three years under Matt Rhule, was treating its first Sugar Bowl in 63 years just as enthusiastically as Texas, maybe more so since word was that Rhule was likely headed to the NFL (He would be named coach of the Carolina Panthers six days after the game).
But for Georgia, this time around would prove to be different. Despite 18 scholarship players out being out for various reasons, including three starting offensive linemen and the top player from the nation’s No. 2 defense plus the team’s best running back getting in for only one snap, the Bulldogs prevailed, 26-14 with a performance more dominant than the final score indicates.
“Tonight you saw a team that played here last year, didn’t win the game, came back and found a way to get it done,” Rhule said in his postgame press conference. “Coach Smart got his team ready to play.”
Indeed.
“We approached things with a little different attitude and the kids fully embraced the experience,” said Smart, who became only the second coach in Sugar Bowl history to win the game after losing in it the year before. “It’s natural when you’re in our position for some of the guys to ask, ‘What am I playing for?’
“And if we’d lost the game maybe we would have found out some of the guys didn’t want to be there as much as we thought. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do that.”
Kirby Smart made the right moves to ensure his Bulldogs were ready to go for the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Photo by Jonathan Bachman.
Georgia didn’t in large part because its superior depth, developed by a succession of top five recruiting classes, paid off.
Among those stepping up – freshman wide receiver George Pickens, who tied a Georgia bowl record with 12 receptions, 11 of them in the first half including one for a touchdown as the Bulldogs built a 19-0 halftime lead.
Pickens won the Miller-Digby Trophy signifying the game’s Most Valuable Player.
“We had a plan to get George the ball,” Smart said. “We thought we’d probably struggle running the ball, so we needed playmakers like George to step up. Maybe we didn’t anticipate the amount, but it certainly worked out that way.”
Quarterback Jake Fromm, playing in his final game before declaring for the draft, completed 20 of 30 passes for 250 yards and two TDs and freshman Zamir White, subbing for All-SEC D’Andre Swift, had 92 yards and the team’s other touchdown.
Jake Fromm closed his college career with 250 yards and a pair of TDs in Georgia's Sugar Bowl victory. Photo by Jonathan Bachman.
Despite the rebuilt offensive line, the Bulldogs wound up with 380 total yards. That was 30 under their season average but 94 more than they’d managed in the loss to LSU.
Defensively, Georgia held Baylor to just 92 yards and no points in the first half. The Bears wound up with 21 fewer points and 136 fewer yards than they’d averaged in their previous 13 games.
Two of the Bulldogs’ lesser-heralded players, defensive backs DJ Daniel and Lewis Cine, led Georgia with eight and six tackles respectively, ably subbing for NFL-bound All-America J.R. Reed who sat out the game with a foot injury.
“Our defense had been dominant all year,” Smart said. “They practiced hard with a lot of enthusiasm. When you do that, it shows up on the field.”
The defense provided the game’s pivotal play.
After Baylor scored on its first possession of the second half to make it 19-7, the Bears forced a three-and-out and then drove to the Georgia 46 where they faced fourth-and-four.
Rhule elected to go for it, but freshman linebacker Azeez Ojulari sacked quarterback Charlie Brewer, stripping him of the ball in the process with freshman Travon Walker recovering.
“The start of the second half showed the resiliency on Baylor’s part,” Swift said. “But in a big play situation we got a great pass rush and we stopped the bleeding. It changed the whole momentum of the game.”
Rhule rued his choice.
“I really, really, really regret my decision to go for it,” he said. “That was a bad coaching move by me. You just can’t make bad decisions like that.”
That was because after the sack, Georgia drove for a touchdown, this one coming from 13 yards out on a run by White.
But the key was the play before when holder Jake Camarda converted a fake field goal from the 19 into a six-yard gain and a first down.
“We’d thought about it twice before, but checked out of it,” Smart said, “It’s one of those things where you want to see how the scoring is going and seeing how the other team is aligning. We knew we wanted the (seven) points right then so we went for it.”
White’s score made it 26-7, and although Baylor would come back with its own touchdown drove on its ensuring possession, the Bears could get no closer than the Bulldogs’ 46 in the fourth quarter.
“They had us reeling in the first half,” Rhule said. “We fought back in the second half, maybe had a chance. But credit to Georgia. They made the plays they needed to make.”
The Bulldogs were in control in the first half, although they had only one first down in their first three possessions before mounting a drive that ended with a 24-yard field goal by Rodrigo Blankenship with 49 seconds left in the opening period.
The big play was a flea-flicker from Fromm to Pickens that covered 46 yards to the Baylor 14.
A quick three-and-out gave Georgia the ball back to start the second quarter, and they went on an eight-play, 85-yard drive capped by Fromm’s 27-yard TD pass to Pickens. It was Pickens’ third catch of the drive. He would add two more on the next possession which ended with a 31-yard field goal by Blankenship and another two in a 71-yard drive that Fromm finished with a 16-yard scoring pass to Matt Landers that made it 19-0.
That gave Pickens his team’s first eight receptions.
“We left him one-on-one and he made the plays,” Rhule said of Pickens. “We played off him a little bit, they threw it out there and he made guys miss. Their MO was to get the ball to him, and they just continued to do that.”
Baylor struggled to slow down Georgia receiver George Pickens. Photo by Jonathan Bachman.
Baylor did a better job against Pickens in the second half. holding him to a single catch. But Pickens had already done enough to become the first wide receiver to win the Miller-Digby since Junior Hemingway of Michigan in 2012.
Besides putting the clamps on Pickens, the Bears did threaten to make a game of it with that early score, Charlie Brewer’s 12-yard pass to Denzel Mims and subsequent quick stop.
But after Ojulari’s strip/sack and the ensuing touchdown drive, there was little doubt of the final outcome.
It didn’t help Baylor’s cause that the Bears had a season-high three turnovers to none for Georgia. Baylor had lived on the edge all season, winning five times by a touchdown or less.
“When you play a team as talented as Georgia, the margin for error is really, really small,” Rhule said. “They don’t give you anything for free. We came back and fought. But you’ve got to make more than a couple of plays to get back in the game.”
Baylor may have lost the game, but in what sounded like – and was – a valedictory statement after the game, Rhule pointed out how much the Bears had to be proud of. “We weren’t even picked to be here,” he said. “I’m very, very proud of what we did this year, very grateful to our players for what they’ve done. This program has done a tremendous job of rebuilding. I told our players tonight it’s been an honor to coach them.”
The good feelings about the game were even more felt on the Georgia side. Not only had the Bulldogs twice come up just short of the playoffs after being barely denied the national championship the year before, many viewed the program as having taken a step back in 2019. When every game you’ve played for the past three seasons has had playoff implications, the team was being held to an almost impossibly-high standard.
Another Sugar Bowl loss would have only amplified the negativity. Instead, despite being shorthanded, Georgia prevailed. And, Smart pointed out, it came in the same bowl in which the Bulldogs had performed so poorly the year before.
“We had a lot of players anxious to get that bad taste out of their mouths,” he said. “But we knew we had to go in with a different attitude. It’s not easy to shut out the noise, but our players did that and fully embraced the challenge. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.”
Story by Ted Lewis.
Miller-Digby Award Winner Georgia Pickens. Photo by Wally Porter.
2020 Allstate Sugar Bowl Game Program
